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August 08, 2007, 5:28 PM BG, 2:28 PM GMT

History and Religion

Published on December 22, 2005 at 7:44 PM BG
Updated on December 26, 2005 at 7:46 PM BG

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Archeology 2005 in Bulgaria

“We are digging on 19 sites and the year has really turned to be a gold one,” said during the summer the Director of the National History Museum, Bojidar Dimitrov. He said this on the occasion of the discovery of the Golden treasure of 15 thousand small golden objects unearthed near the village of Dabene, Central Bulgaria. The treasure dates back to the 3rd Millenium BC and according to Prof. Dimitrov, it radically changes the image of civilization in our lands. One of the most impressive examples is the group of objects found in the Varna Halcolithic necropolis of the 5th Millennium BC, better known as the oldest processed gold of the world. The Dabene treasure fills the gap between this treasure and the Valchetran treasure of the 12th Century BC.

“With this discovery we have found a new focus of a highly developed civilization of pre-historic people – perhaps of the proto-Thracians as have started calling them. It is clear now that the Thracian ethnos has sprang up from the old local population that lived in our lands between the 5^th and the 1^st Millennium BC, said at the end of the archeological season Professor Bojidar Dimitrov. The way the objects from the Dabene treasure have been worked out and their miniature size show a very high level of technological skills in the processing of the metal, but also of ore-extraction of the time. So it is clear why the Dabene treasure stirred such great interest in the rest of Europe and the US, in fact everywhere people are interested in the development of human civilization.”

Svetla Tsaneva, restorer of these objects brings more:

“These finds cause confusion even among people like myself, who has for 20 years been engaged in studying ancient goldsmith technologies. Just imagine; there are among them 10 thousand beads of a diameter of 1 millimeter, being quite even and uniform in size. I have been watching them one by one under a microscope in order to clean them without leaving traces of modern instruments. None of these beads has any defect that would show where the piece had been soldered.”

A Thracian ruler’s Golden wreath and ring, a Silver knee-cover and two Silver Rhytons richly decorated with scenes from Thracian Mythology; a Bronze helmet, armor, sward, vessels of Silver, Bronze and ceramics and many other objects were unearthed in a burial mound near the village of Zlatinitsa, Southern Bulgaria. The expedition was lead by Professor Daniela Aggre from the Archeological Institute and Museum of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. The work was done in partnership with the National History Museum.

“This was perhaps one of the biggest finds of this kind in the last 100 years, because we had so far unearthed no intact burial mound of a Thracian ruler. Many tombs of Thracian ruler have been unearthed, but they have all be plundered beforehand, in antiquity even, Professor Dimitrov explains. Greatly interesting have been the diggings in Stranja Mountain, showing the oldest tombs of the Thracians, the so-called Dolmens. These are enormous tombs made of several monoliths. No intact dolmens have been discovered yet either.”

Not far from Dabene, at “Kozi Gramadi” peak in “Sredna Gora” Mountain diggings have unearthed a large Thracian fortress and ruler’s residence form the 5^th and the early 4^th Century BC. Here are more details from Dr. Ivan Hristov:

“The fortress and residence are separate from one another but are connected by an antique road, their close proximity and simultaneous use. They are built during the same time and are part of a large and densely populated system of settlements in the mountain sharing a necropolis of burial mounds. The residence itself was fortified by a thick wall of a height between 1.5 and 3 meters, made of very well preserved cut stone blocks that have made the masonry extremely stable. What we concentrated our efforts on was actually what we can call the palace. It is a two-storey building with a very impressive main entrance and decorations on the walls. I should say this is only the beginning of a large scale future study of the entire complex, which is unique not only for our lands, but in the entire Southeast Europe. Parallels with such constructions can be looked for only in Thrace itself, but up to date we have not unearthed anything similar neither in view of the size of these representative buildings nor the time the complex was created.”

“We had very important diggings also on medieval sites - for example the First Bulgarian capital Pliska, Northeastern Bulgaria. There we unearthed the tunnel network under the so-called inner city, in which the kings and aristocracy lived, Prof. Bojidar Dimitrov goes on to say. We also researched in the vicinity of the village of Khan Krum, Northern Bulgaria, where we discovered medieval Goth burials. The study of the necropolis of the independent ancient city-state of Appolonia, today’s Sozopol was also continued throughout the year.”

The director of the national History Museum jokes that Gold was even found there, despite the law passed by the ancient parliament that Silver and Gold should serve the living and should therefore not be put in graves. However, among this year’s finds in Sozopol there were ceramic vessels decorated with drawings in Gold.

“We are studying many other places. And since archeology’s goal is information and not just objects, we can say the excavations that have brought no gold have also brought us priceless information on the past of our lands” Professor Bojidar Dimitrov said in conclusion.

Written by: Veneta Pavlova

English version: Iva Letnikova

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